After a mistrial, a guilty plea and a withdrawal of that plea, Edward Ream, 64, the Barlow man accused of poisoning neighborhood dogs with antifreeze, appeared in Ballard County court Tuesday for the first day of his retrial.

Charged with multiple counts of animal torture, attempted torture and criminal mischief, Ream's first trial, in November of last year, ended in a mistrial due to an error during jury selection.

After that, Ream agreed to a plea deal, but then withdrew his guilty plea and opted to go to trial.

In court Tuesday, Commonwealth Attorney Mike Stacy delivered his opening statement, telling the jurors that Ream was guilty and they would see proof of that.

"This man did not just kill animals," Stacy said. "He lured animals to his house for the purpose of destroying them."

Stacy started his case by calling several witnesses including dog owners who live close to Reams and believe he poisoned their dogs, a sheriff's deputy whose dog was another alleged victim, an animal control officer and two veterinarians.

Ballard Animal Control Officer James Campbell testified to multiple complaints animal control had received regarding sick or dead dogs dating back as far as 1999.

Then on Feb. 6, 2015, Campbell said, animal control received a call stating there was a container of meat soaking in antifreeze sitting on Ream's back porch. Previous reports indicate the caller was a neighbor who had gone to Ream's house to drop off wrongly delivered mail.

Campbell said a search warrant was obtained and he and several other officers from animal control and the Ballard County Sheriff's Department went to Ream's Atkins Dixon Road residence.

There, Campbell testified, officers found a container of meat soaking in a green liquid believed to be antifreeze. Two more containers were found in Ream's garage, Campbell said, along with a half-empty jug of anti-freeze.

During the initial stage of the search, Campbell said Ream stood on his back porch, pointed to the nearby container and said, "Hell yes I did it. I'm getting tired of those dogs (peeing) on my porch."

Also called to testify were four dog owners who claimed their dogs -- six dogs in total -- were poisoned with antifreeze, four of which either died from it or were euthanized.

Jo Majors, who lives next door to Ream, testified three of her dogs were poisoned, the first in 2000, another in 2008 and the third in 2009. Of the three, she said one dog was euthanized and the other two cost more than $2,400 to save. One of the surviving dogs now has permanent kidney damage, she said.

Stacy also called two veterinarians -- Dr. Greg Rodgers of Coffee Memorial Animal Clinic in Barlow and Dr. Robert Wynn of West Kentucky Emergency Veterinary Services in Paducah -- who testified to examining the dogs in question, as well as the impact antifreeze has on a dog's system.

At first, Wynn said dogs that ingest antifreeze can appear drunk, showings signs of listlessness, nausea and staggering about. Once the chemical hits the dog's blood stream, the doctor said, it starts to damage the kidneys, ultimately causing kidney failure and death.

"It may take the animal up to 72 hours to pass away from the toxicity," he said. "The animals many times will exhibit pain ... and flinch because of the discomfort."

Ream's attorney, Jeremy Ian Smith, objected several times to the admittance of the veterinarian bills but was overruled each time.

During his cross-examinations, Smith established the animals were trespassing on Ream's property, a clear violation of Ballard County's nuisance ordinance.

Smith also called into question testimony from one dog owner, Michael Rollins, who also was one of the sheriff's deputies who responded to Ream's residence last year to help execute the search warrant.